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Pope Dalton's rationale pure hypocrisy

So Premier Dad is set to add another title to his name: Pope Dalton - the First.

Yep, our fearless leader is taking on the mantle not just of secular leader of the people of this province, but also as our moral, religious and spiritual authority.

How else can you explain McGuinty's edict this week that his government can overrule 2,000 years of Catholic theology - with the stroke of a pen?

His new bullying legislation dictates that if one student in any school - even a Catholic one - wants a so-called gay-straight alliance, then they can demand and get one.

What next? If one student says the communion wafer and wine aren't really the body and blood of Christ, then the school has to adjust its theology accordingly?

This is the educational equivalent of the inmates taking over the asylum.

And it's pure hypocrisy.

The premier's four children went to Catholic school. His wife Terri teaches at a Catholic school.

Education Minister Laurel Broten's sons also go to Catholic school.

The Catholic church hasn't made any secret about its view on gay rights.

So why would Broten put her kids in a school when she disagrees so vigorously with Catholic beliefs, I asked her in a scrum?

She answered with typical Liberal double-talk.

"This is about having schools where our students, if they draw a picture of their family and it has two moms in it or it has two dads, that they understand and know that other pupils in that classroom understand and know that's just as loving family as theirs," she said.

So, by putting her kids in the school system she's going to change the church from within? I don't think it works that way.

The Catholic church isn't a buffet. You don't pick and choose which values you want and which you don't.

You either buy into the whole bundle - or you pull a Martin Luther and start your own religion.

We all know why people use Catholicism as a flag of convenience when it comes to putting their kids in separate schools.

The Catholic system does what the public system cannot. It teaches morals and values and ethics to children. It's able to enforce a stricter code of discipline, because it can expel students to the public system.

By keeping control of their schools, Catholics have been able to protect their kids from the social engineering and left-wing tinkering that has turned our public system into a dumping ground that brainwashes young people with every nutbar radical ideology that's fashionable - such as the U.S.-based gay-straight alliances movement.

If the politicians who are accountable for the public school system don't have the courage to put their own kids in that system, they shouldn't hold office.

Alternately, they should pull the funding for Catholic schools.

And no, it won't save $7 billion we now give the separate school system, because those children in Catholic schools still have to be educated.

So put up or shut up, premier. You won the 2007 election squawking about religious schools being a horrific form of "segregation and sequestration."

So, either leave the Catholic schools alone. Or pull their funding and go with one public school system.

And everyone, please. Simmer down and do us all a favour. It you don't subscribe to Catholic beliefs, don't put your kids in Catholic schools and don't have family members teach in them.